Automated planning of process models: the construction of exclusive choices

Abstract

In our competitive world, companies need to adapt their processes quickly in order to react, for instance, to changing customer demands. Process models, as means to support process management, are nowadays often created and adapted in a time-consuming, widely used manual manner. Semantic Business Process Management in combination with planning approaches can alleviate this drawback by enabling an automated planning of process models. This paper describes the drawbacks that existing planning algorithms have related to the creation of process models. Therefore, we introduce - based on the design science paradigm - an innovative algorithm (method) that is suitable for the planning of process models focusing on the construction of the control flow pattern exclusive choice. Demonstrating the feasibility and the effectiveness of our method, we implemented our approach as a prototype. Finally, we evaluate the algorithm in terms of different properties like termination and its applicability within a real-use situation.